Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
American actor and art educator who portrayed Prince Albert on Broadway and lectures annually on art at over 200 colleges.
Eight records
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
You came to Europe as a boy, didn't you?
I came actually as a young man. I was uh at uh I saved my money and bought it one of those glorious trips, like see twelve countries in twelve minutes. And there were no aeroplanes, so you know we saw most of it from the train window. But it was a terribly exciting experience for me because I'm very visually minded and I knew every work of art before I came. So I think anybody who'd been near me would have heard nothing but, oh, that's it. So that's what it looks like.
Presenter asks
How did the theater come into your life?
Well, I I have a suspicion vaguely through the Glee Club. The thing of performing I liked. So while I was here at the Courtold I met some people who worked at the Gate Theatre and I went down and met Norman Marshall. And Norman gave me a walk on part as a policeman in a play called Chicago.
Presenter asks
This was a quick success, wasn't it?
Yes, it was. It took me about five years to live up to.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
You came to Europe as a boy, didn't you?
Vincent Price
Mhm. I came actually as a young man. I was uh at uh I saved my money.
Vincent Price
and bought it one of those glorious trips, like see twelve countries in twelve minutes. And there were no aeroplanes, so you know we saw most of it from the train window. But it was a terribly exciting experience for me because I'm very visually minded and I knew every work of art before I came. So I think anybody who'd been near me would have heard nothing but, oh, that's it. So that's what it looks like. And when did you next come? Then I uh went to Yale, to the University in New Haven, Connecticut, and I every year I came over with the Glee Club.
Vincent Price
And I sang with it and we came over and travelled all over Europe and sang in contests and just had a marvelous time.
Presenter
And when you left Yale?
Vincent Price
Then I went and taught school at a school, a boys' school, called Riverdale Country School. And I had a kind of um
Vincent Price
Well, a strange course that this man who was the head of the school allowed me to introduce where I would go into classes and uh tell the students studying Latin what the people looked like through the portrait sculpture of Rome or uh through what little painting is left or mosaics. And then I did that throughout all of the classes in the school. It was fascinating. You really wanted
Vincent Price
How long we Schoolmaster. Just two years until I found out that the students knew more than I did.
Vincent Price
So what did we do? So then I came back over here and uh went to the Courtold Institute. How did the theater come into your life?
Vincent Price
Well, I I have a suspicion vaguely through the Glee Club.
Vincent Price
Uh the thing of performing I liked.
Vincent Price
So while I was here at the Courtold I met some people who worked at the Gate Theatre and I went down and met Norman Marshall.
Vincent Price
And Norman gave me a walk on part as a policeman in a play called Chicago. You did several plays at the gate, didn't you? Yes, I did that, and then my second play was Victoria Regina by Lawrence Hausmann.
Presenter
In there.
Vincent Price
And I played Prince Albert.
Vincent Price
And then before I went back to New York to play that same play with Helen Hayes, I did The Affairs of Anatole, Granville Barker's translation. You played you had a long run in New York in Victoria Regional. Yes, it ran three years.
Vincent Price
And it was very exciting three years. It really was. At the age of twenty three to be in the number one hit with the number one star in a in a number one part. This was a quick success, wasn't it? Yes, it was. It took me about five years to live up to.
Presenter
Yeah, no
Presenter
Let's talk about the other half of your life. You of course take a great interest in i in the art world. You do a lot of committee work in American museums and uh
Vincent Price
Uh
Vincent Price
Our foundations. Yes. I um that goes really back to to my debt to the President, President Roosevelt.
Vincent Price
Because I feel that the actor, if he is an important actor in the public's mind,
Vincent Price
that part of his debt to himself, particularly and to his public, is to be a public servant and to do something good.
Vincent Price
The one thing I knew before I became an actor was the history of man through his art.
Vincent Price
And in America we were a nation, quite honestly, of blind people.
Vincent Price
Of actually musically we're terribly aware, but we're still just learning how to open our eyes and see.
Vincent Price
We aren't concentrated and it's a big effort to go and see pictures.
Presenter
Yeah.
Vincent Price
Television has flunked it.
Vincent Price
Radio gave us music in its very best. You know, I mean, the world is conscious of good music, of all kinds of music.
Vincent Price
But television has given us no pictures.
Presenter
That is sadly true.
Presenter
You lecture each year on art.
Vincent Price
I go every single year, usually in the month month of February.
Presenter
Oh yeah, yeah.
Vincent Price
I should have my head examined.
Vincent Price
Because it's the worst month in America from top to bottom, weather-wise, and I fly.
Vincent Price
But I have lectured in 200 colleges in about 350 different cities. I lecture on Van Gogh. I lecture on thing called Three American Voices, which is Walt Whitman and uh Tennessee Williams and Whistler. I lecture on the American spirit. And I feel that part of my job is to
Vincent Price
interest the American people in themselves culturally.
Presenter asks
You of course take a great interest in the art world. You do a lot of committee work in American museums and foundations. What led you to that?
I um that goes really back to to my debt to the President, President Roosevelt. Because I feel that the actor, if he is an important actor in the public's mind, that part of his debt to himself, particularly and to his public, is to be a public servant and to do something good. The one thing I knew before I became an actor was the history of man through his art. And in America we were a nation, quite honestly, of blind people. Of actually musically we're terribly aware, but we're still just learning how to open our eyes and see.
Presenter asks
You lecture each year on art. What do you lecture on?
I go every single year, usually in the month month of February. I should have my head examined. Because it's the worst month in America from top to bottom, weather-wise, and I fly. But I have lectured in 200 colleges in about 350 different cities. I lecture on Van Gogh. I lecture on thing called Three American Voices — Walt Whitman and Tennessee Williams and Whistler. I lecture on the American spirit. And I feel that part of my job is to interest the American people in themselves culturally.
“I came actually as a young man. I was uh at uh I saved my money and bought it one of those glorious trips, like see twelve countries in twelve minutes. And there were no aeroplanes, so you know we saw most of it from the train window. But it was a terribly exciting experience for me because I'm very visually minded and I knew every work of art before I came.”
“Well, I I have a suspicion vaguely through the Glee Club. The thing of performing I liked.”
“It took me about five years to live up to.”
“I feel that the actor, if he is an important actor in the public's mind, that part of his debt to himself, particularly and to his public, is to be a public servant and to do something good.”